Reflection on materialism : Op-Ed article in The Pioneer

January 17, 2006

Material is immaterial http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_variable=OPED & file_name=opd2%2Etxt & counter_img=2Acharya Mahaprajna There are many responses to the question: "When does God laugh?" One of them is, 'God laughs when the patient is dying and the doctor says that he will not let him die'. Can any doctor give life to someone? If medicines could keep people alive, the population of the world would have been several times more then it is today. No one would have died. Doctors would keep everybody

alive. What keeps us alive is our pranshakti or bio-energy. As long as bio-energy is there, cells will retain the power of regeneration (constructive metabolism). And so long as cells keep regenerating, life will remain intact. Once the regenerative power ends, our resistance or immunity will decrease and gradually a stage is reached when neither the doctor nor any medicine will be able to save life. Pranshakti (bio-energy) is the main basis of life. Pran is the Sanskrit word for life. Acquiring this understanding is the main subject of prekshadhyan. Ten prans have been mentioned. The energy that keeps the body going is pran. Then there are the senses and their respective prans. The energy that keeps the senses functioning is pran.

Next is the mind and its pran. Similarly, there is breath and its pran. There is a practice in prekshadhyan: Breathe and experience the inhalation. It is the pran that makes inhalation possible. Practise to see pran and breath as two distinct things. During this practice, the subtlety and concentration of the mind register a high rise. It feels like a scientist becoming so absorbed in a major experiment that he becomes completely oblivious to all external goings-on. Once Einstein invited a friend to dinner. When the latter arrived, he found Einstein totally absorbed in his research. In fact, he had forgotten all about the dinner. The guest sized up the situation, helped himself with the food and quietly returned home. When Einstein finished his experiment he found empty used plates on the dining table. He said to himself that possibly he forgot that he had already eaten

his dinner and so went back to the laboratory. How did such a great scientist behave so abnormally? When we are engaged in the subtle investigation of bio-energy, our energy withdraws within itself and nothing external is remembered. Perception of the body, perception of the sense, perception of the mind, perception of the vital essence or bio-energy and other practices are aimed at a comprehensive understanding of life. From this point of view, it can be said that prekshadhyan is not mere meditation, but a philosophy of life. Let us all examine the philosophical aspect. 'Philosophy' is an ancient word, but the philosophy taught in modern

universities is purely at the level of ideas or thoughts. There are two dimensions of the word 'Philosophy': One of its meanings is related to it as a subject and another as a body of ideas. The subject of philosophy is facts. Science has also the same subject. The only function of philosophy from this viewpoint is to know reality. It can be factual or fact-oriented philosophy. Knowing reality is knowing the truth. In philosophy, it represents the existential stream of thinking. The second stream is utilitarianism. It is concerned only with utility, not with reality. These days there is a lot of talk about 'Applied Philosophy'. Anything that cannot be applied is not philosophy. Philosophy should not be merely factual, it should be realisable. Traditionally,

philosophy is segregated into two schools: Idealism and realism. In the latter, existence or reality is central; while in the former, the whole thing moves around an idea or presumption. Let us veer away from both approaches and link philosophy to life. Let us refrain from explaining the world or the highest or absolute truth. Let us explain only life and try to understand it. Such a philosophy is the philosophy of understanding life. Let us develop a viewpoint which helps us understand life. Today, our entire energy is being spent on understanding the means of livelihood or earning a living. I asked a few students who came to meet me: "Do you ever think about life?" They could not understand what I meant. Then I asked, "What is the purpose of your studies?" They replied, "The aim of studying well is to earn sumptuously." A girl would put it thus, "The aim of studying

well is to get a good match." The whole life has got cribbed and confined and it has led to all sorts of problem. "Our ideal is not the spirituality that withdraws from life but the conquest of life by the power of the spirit." - Aurobindo.

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